Turn 2310 - Game over?

[Doug R.]

Based on the slope of the decline in English speaking characters, assuming that the rate of loss does not change, there will be no more English speaking characters by turn 2310. That is in 16 months, not a long time. If ever there was a case for the administration to take marketing very seriously, this is it.

[deadboy]

That soon? Geez this game is dying out fast......

[Doug R.]

So as not to doomsay without making a suggestion, has anyone considered putting adverts out for volunteer marketers among college students? Believe it or not, working on these games can be used to pad a resume (just based on my administrative experience here and in my previous game, I qualify for real world jobs at real game companies).

If you could get two marketing students that understood the genre and seriously wanted to pad their resume, it could do a lot for the game.

(Do volunteer organizations advertise for help on monster or careerbuilder?)

[Solfius]

It would also help to seriously consider why the number of English characters is declining. Is it only English characters or is a trend across all language groups?

Also, why may it be that characters are not being replaced? Why don't people want to replace their characters?

[Nixit]

Could it be the old generation dying out at around the same time?

[Antichrist_Online]

I've put up posters in my Uni. The down turn is due to alot of old timers leaving/cutting down for various reasons, and chain death reactions. Plus alot more multilingual characters (whereas most players had English only characters) I think there will always be English speakers, it's just that the carrying capacity is lower than the current population (the controlling resource -humans) with present growth.

[Solfius]

I've just checked some turn reports.

Over the past 10 days we have lost 40 players. Not all at once, but a few each day, and it doesn't look like it's going to stop either.

If it continues at this rate, in a little over a year there will be no players left

[nitefyre]

Could somebody pass along some of the number statistics found in your account/turn reports as I don't have one anymore? I want to compare that to when in Issue 7 (September 06), we at the Webzine first stressed the situation by our choice of articles:

http://www.cantr.net/e107/e107_plugins/ ... php?cat.88

especially: http://www.cantr.net/e107/e107_plugins/ ... ontent.107

[Solfius]

1810
Number of players: 1609
Number of characters: 8460

1813
Number of players: 1632
Number of characters: 8456

1814
Number of players: 1632
Number of characters: 8456

1815
Number of players: 1632
Number of characters: 8456

1816
Number of players: 1632
Number of characters: 8456

1817
Number of players: 1632
Number of characters: 8456

1818
Number of players: 1632
Number of characters: 8456

1819
Number of players: 1599
Number of characters: 8433

1820
Number of players: 1594
Number of characters: 8420

1821
Number of players: 1575
Number of characters: 8399

1822
Number of players: 1567
Number of characters: 8378

I missed a couple unfortunately, and I requested reports for days 1813 to 1819 at the same time, I don't know if this affects the stats your are given or not, but may explain why the numbers of players and characters didn't change during those days except on the last report which may have been requested after the figures updated. Even over these few days the downward trend is fairly clear.

[Doug R.]

It would also help to seriously consider why the number of English characters is declining. Is it only English characters or is a trend across all language groups?

The Polish zone was increasing, but seems to have topped out at a level slightly higher than the current number English speakers. It will be interesting to see if they can maintain this level, or if they will begin falling off as well.

I had a thought this afternoon about the Gaia hypothesis: that the earth is living and can heal itself. Perhaps Cantr is working under a reverse Gaia, where fundamental flaws in game design are naturally pushing the game towards the end. Some players have stated repeatedly that Cantr can't be fixed without a reset, and I just stated the other day that Cantr will never be reset due to the loss in players it would cause, but perhaps Cantr is pushing itself to where the players and designers are unwilling to take it: death and rebirth.

Granted, it will never reach zero characters, provided the game doesn't close, but it seems so far that people are understanding my point.

[nitefyre]

Having re-read that article and looking at some of the graphs' slopes change from negative back to positive, I have to point out the very obvious criticism of Doug's calculation--that you cannot assume that the same net-downward trend will continue at this rate; the data here is so miniscule (several days) that it is not necessarily reflective of the situation at hand. Although I acknowledge something should be done about the MD and advertising, it is also the responsibility of the players to promote it as it is a grass roots styled game and nevertheless, there's still a good 1.5 to 2 years, according to Doug.

P.S> Thanks Solf.

[Doug R.]

Although I acknowledge something should be done about the MD, it is also the responsibility of the players as it is a grass roots styled game

Yes. It is blatantly obvious that almost no players vote on the voting sites that don't give points. I vote on them several times a day. If you use tabbed browsing on a fast connection, it takes very little effort.

[Solfius]

A fresh start would allow for some of the more fundamental issues and suggestions to be addressed.

Is this the first time in game history we've had such a slump in our player base? Obviously there is a natural variation, but is this decline significant? (perhaps someone could work it out?)

[Solfius]

I vote as often as allowed. Perhaps if they could be organised to show more clearly how often you can vote eg once an hour, once a day, and also some of the links require you to long in.

I vote on all of them daily, and on the Ultimate Directory as often as I am allowed and able.

[nitefyre]

As a non-player with only history he contributed to lose, I disagree with hastily coming to the idea of a reset. That will do more harm than good and I highly doubt that the staff & players who contributed so much to the game as it is now would be willing to invest more energy into entirely revamping something that is already suitable.

On the other hand to my assumption criticism before, the overall trends do reflect Doug's point (statistics taken from "We got what we deserved," I7: Webzine).

500 players in October 03
1,925 players in August 06
1,567 players in March 07

In less than 7 months, nearly 400 players have been lost (I am one of them ).